Food For Thoughts

By Secret Agent X-9

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS is just that... A collection of subjects that will wake your brain up and give it something to think about. This is not quite your "typical book". Written with a slight touch of humor, each chapter tackles a particular subject. It begins with the economy and health care, and the problems associated with both. It even offers some possible solutions to those problems.

Have you been shopping in a grocery store lately? The Author has, and is not too happy about what's on the shelves there these days.

And speaking of the gulf oil spill... If you think that was a disaster, wait till you hear what could be in the works in the wonderful world of physics research. What some scientists are planning to do with one of their latest "toys" shouldn't be done by any one, anywhere on this planet. But they're planning on doing it anyway.

The TV broadcasting industry has now gone digital. It's now "a better picture, and clearer sound". Or is that "a clearer picture, and better sound"? And it's now "the news you need, from the people you can trust". Oh, really! Well. according to the Author's TV, it's none of the above.

Seen any dinosaurs around, lately? Probably not. The Author gives a good reason why you don't.

Seen any UFO's lately? No? Well, you're not alone. But back in the late 40's and early 50's, they were showing up in the skies all around the world. The U.S. Air Force even formed a dedicated investigative unit, Project Blue Book, to investigate UFO sightings. They concluded that most of the sightings were "misinterpretations of natural phenomenon". Now-a-days, there are hardly ever any UFO sightings any more. The Author asks, have "natural phenomenon" been turned off, for the past 50 years or so? Can you do that?

And speaking of real aliens (not to be confused with the "illegal" ones who now seem to be everywhere in the U.S.), the Author speculates about why we haven't found any yet... Or why they haven't found us by now.

And then there's the little story about the flying squirrels...

And we won't even mention that problem in the middle east. But the book does.

All that, and more. So... If you're looking for a book that's different from all the rest... This just might be it.

And those strange little pictures at the end of each chapter aren't bad, either...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Secret Agent X-9
• Release date: Jan 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458175168

Book preview

Food For Thoughts

By

Secret Agent X-9

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY

B. Kinton on Smashwords

Food For Thoughts

Copyright 2010 by B. Kinton

All Rights Reserved

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(MOVE AHEAD TO TABLE OF CONTENTS)

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Need something to think about? Looking for something to discuss around the water cooler at work? In need of a few slightly different angles from which to view some of life's problems?

How about a few solutions for some of life's problems... Could you use some of those?

There's a little something in this book for just about everyone. Here-in you will find a collection of assorted topics that relate to the complicated world that we live in today. The Author has zeroed in on a number of issues, some of them controversial, all of them interesting, and has presented views of them that are sure to generate yet more views from readers.

The subject matter is broad and far ranging, to make the book interesting to the largest number of readers. Each chapter deals with a particular subject. The economy. Health care. The food industry. Space exploration. The problem in the middle east. Religion. The possibilities and implications of life elsewhere in the universe. And more...

There's even a chapter devoted to the comic book industry!

So turn of that stupid TV, or video game, and find a comfortable place to sit down, and read a good book for a change. This book.

And who knows? You might just end up as the new center of attraction at work, or maybe even become a person who figured out how to solve some major outstanding problem in the world today.

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

By

Secret Agent X-9

7 / 2010

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This E-book is licensed for your personal use only. This E-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this Author.

ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE

Rocky and Bullwinkle at lunch - It's easy to tell which is which... Rocky is the flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle is the moose...

For the full story behind the image, see the write-up at the end of the book... (Click here, or on write-up).

ABOUT THOSE ... OTHER... IMAGES...

Presenting!... Zorian Strange, the World's Greatest Magician!... And Sylanna Thelxepia, the World's Greatest Escape Artist!

You never know just what it's going to be that sells a book...

It might be the way it is written. Or perhaps what it is about. Or... you never can tell... it just might be the pictures.

With that in mind, I've thrown in some pictures.

It is my hope that people will buy the book for what is written there-in. If that happens, then the pictures merely come along for the ride, so to speak.

But there will undoubtedly be some out there who will be trying to decide whether or not to buy. If the pictures turn out to be the key factor that makes them decide to buy, then the book will gain a few more readers than it might have had otherwise.

Do the pictures have anything to do with the rest of the book?

No.

They have nothing to do with the book. But the reader may just find them interesting to look at, and they may provide a sort of intermission between the chapters. And for those readers who may be interested in photography and the fine art of digital image manipulation... Well... God only knows what sort of conversation's the images might end up generating.

The images are of an act in THE MAGIC SHOW called The Mystery Of The Woman In The Brass Ring, where-in Master Magician Zorian Strange levitates co-performer Miss Thelxepia up into the air in front of a live audience, and then makes her disappear into thin air, right before their eyes.

Two or three images will appear at the end of each chapter...

CONTENTS

1.THE ECONOMY

2.THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS

3.THE GULF OIL SPILL - A FEW QUICK THOUGHTS

4.HOW DEEP IS A BLACK HOLE?

5.YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

6.A TALE OF SKULLDUGERY AND INTRIGUE

7.THE NEWS YOU NEED... FROM THE PEOPLE YOU CAN TRUST

8.BREAKING NEWS!... THIS JUST IN!...

9.WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ALL THOSE UFO's?

10.AND THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR SUPERMAN

11.THE PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

12.MARS, US, AND THE DINOSAURS

13.IT'S LIFE, CAPTAIN... BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT..

14.THE GOD GENE

15.SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS

ABOUT THE FRONT COVER IMAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

CHAPTER 1

(MOVE AHEAD TO START OF NEXT CHAPTER)

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHTS

I would recommend raw tuna fish.

That recommendation is based on advice from that legendary Russian Chess Master of some years back, who stated that he sometimes ate raw tuna fish prior to a match, because it seemed to go straight to his head and clear his mind, and enable him to think clearly and be at the top of his game.

I mention that here simply to stay in tune with the title of this book... And now that I have fulfilled that obligation, I can proceed with no guilty feelings into assorted other subjects...

Let's begin with the economy...

As this is being written, the world economy is in a rather bad state, though things do seem to be looking a bit better at the moment. I'm going to stick mostly to looking at the problem from the U.S. side of things, but many other countries around the globe are also having problems.

The problem started to show itself most apparent when many of the big banks and insurance companies down on Wall Street began declaring that they were plum out of money and about to go under. That would in turn cause many businesses and industries to go under, which would put many people out of work, which would cause them to not be able to buy things, pay bills, pay mortgages, and so on. Which would cause those banks and insurance companies to go even further under.

Endless spiral, going continuously in the downward direction.

And mixed into that mess, all along the way, was the Government, of course. The economy collapses, people can't pay taxes, all of which destroys the Government. You can't get tax dollars out of people who have no money... Just like you can't get blood out of a rock.

So the Government stepped in and took action, to A., stop the problem from getting any worse, and B., hopefully enable the problem to get better.

The Government bailed out Wall Street.

And how did it do that, you ask?

Are you ready for this?

By printing money.

Well, it's not exactly that. Printing money kind of implies that they just did just that. They just cranked up the printing press and printed money, and then gave it to all those big companies down on Wall Street.

These days, big money matters are usually handled with computers. A dollar is just a few data bits on a memory chip or hard drive. But those data bits represent paper money. It's for the sake of convenience and speed. Sending data bits around the world via computer networks sure beats having to carry a bunch of suitcases full of paper money all over the place.

But I digress...

So the Government bailed out wall street, by printing money. But more accurately, the Government didn't make that money up out of thin air. Money is supposed to represent real-world assets. Farm goods, mined minerals, manufactured products, goods and services, and so on. In other words, the money we use in the U.S. represents all those real things that are all around us. Everything has a value associated with it. You add up the total value of all the things in this country, and issue money that represents that value. And that, in rather over-simplified terms, is the meaning of money in this country.

There's nothing worse than a dollar bill that does NOT represent any real thing of value. That's a worthless dollar bill.

So if the Government just hauls off and prints a dollar, it has to represent some real world value. Otherwise, its worthless. (Not worth the paper it's printed on, as they say!).

So how does the government make those bail-out dollars worth something?

Well... There are various ways to do that...

In this particular case... Those bail-out dollars represent money that the Government does not have, YET, but it will have, eventually, sometime in the future.

It's called borrowing money.

And the Government borrowed it from you, the tax payer.

They also borrowed it from other places... like China, for instance... But let's not get into that just yet...

Anyway... Right now, you don't have any money to loan. You're broke. You can barely make ends meet. Or maybe you can't even make ends meet.

So the Government has arranged to get the money from you sometime later... Say in ten years or so. They're assuming that by then the economy will be back on track, you'll have plenty of extra money, and will be able to pay more in taxes.

Sounds good to me.

Ah – Wait a minute! Hold it! What am I saying?!?

No, it DOESN'T sound good to me. In fact, it sounds down-right crooked and scary.

Let's back up a bit, and take a closer look at this whole mess...

To begin with, lets identify the REAL cause of the problem...

It's been said, over and over ad-infinitum, on TV, the radio, and in books and newspapers, that the cause of the present economic problem was the housing crisis... especially all those sub-prime loans... loans that those big companies allowed, even encouraged, people to take out, that they wouldn't be able to repay. Then, as people ran out of money and defaulted on the loans, that resulted in the big wall street companies now holding houses... and other stuff... that was worth a lot less than they had planned on. They couldn't re-sell any of it at the inflated high prices that they had paid for it, because nobody out there now had enough money to pay those prices. And they just plain refused to lower those prices and absorb the loss themselves. They refused to downsize. Instead, Wall Street just simply declared that THEY were now out of money, and needed a bail-out, or they would go under, and drag the rest of the world down with them.

In case you didn't catch it, there's a recurring little theme running through that last paragraph...

Running out of money.

And THAT is what caused the housing crisis, and the sub-prime loan problem, and wall street's problems.

And it may have eventually reached wall street... But it didn't start there.

What makes an economy run? What allows a country, and a Government, to exist and operate? What allows business and industry to function?

Two things. Money. And a MIDDLE CLASS.

AND... The two HAVE TO GO TOGETHER... Otherwise, you'll get just what we're getting a taste of now. And what they got an even better taste of back in 1929.

The MIDDLE CLASS makes things work. But only if it has the money it needs to buy all the toasters, refrigerators, TV's, cars, shoes, apples and oranges, cd-players and computers, lawn mowers, hats, bats... and so on...

There aren't enough rich people in the whole world to buy enough of all the above, and more, to keep an economy running and healthy.

The middle class needs money to pay taxes, and to make mortgage payments. If it has the money, it will even pay higher taxes, and it will actually be able to keep paying those sub-prime loans, even at those greed-driven rates.

And if the middle class DOESN'T have the money?...

Well... It's as plain as the nose on a game-playing politician's face. All those things mentioned up above... They never get sold. All the little and medium-sized U.S. companies, that make those things, go out of business. Their workers end up out of work, adding to the problem.

Sub-prime loans don't get paid. Houses don't sell. Wall Street ends up in trouble.

Taxes don't get paid. The Government ends up in trouble.

Simplified example...

Here's the whole world. In it, there are ten people, and ten dollars.

One person has 1 dollar and 90 cents. He's rich.

One person has 10 cents. He's poor.

That leaves 8 people, and 8 dollars. So each has a dollar. Those 8 people are the middle class. And that's a healthy economy.

But in the U.S. and many other countries today, that's not how it is. It's more like this...

The rich guy has $7.90.

The poor guy still has 10 cents.

And the middle class? They've now got about 2 dollars total. That's 8 people, with 25 cents each. And that's why we're now in the middle of an economic mess.

So there's the REAL CAUSE of the problem. It's not the housing crisis, or the sub-prime loan mess, or the Companies that are too big to fail down on wall street, who took risks that they never should have taken, and partook of shoddy and irresponsible business practices, and were greedy beyond belief, and are even now still giving tax-payer bail-out money to executives and workers in the form of extravagant bonuses...

The REAL CAUSE of the problem is, THE MIDDLE CLASS HAS RUN OUT OF MONEY.

And where has that money gone? Where is it? If the middle class no longer has it... Who does?

Let me make a list...

The problem has been growing for quite a few years now. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That's the old saying. And it's been happening in the U.S., slowly, over a period of time. Companies pay their executives more and more, while they move more and more jobs over seas, to other countries, where labor is cheaper. So is the standard of living.

Tax laws favor the rich, and loopholes in the tax laws allow big business to make higher profits at tax-payer expense. Those profits don't make it back to the middle class.

A major dent in the middle class was caused a few years back when the price of oil went through the roof. For a while, a major chunk of middle class money went to the oil companies, to pay for gas, and heating oil. Many people were half freezing to death because they cut their thermostats way down, because they had only so much money to spend on food and gas and oil. Forget about toasters and TV's and washing machines and cars...

So back then, even when the middle class still had a little extra money, they were forced to give it all to the oil companies, rather than re-invest it into the rest of the economy.

The oil companies, of course, made the highest profits in the history of the world... All while people were struggling to keep warm and buy food. Once again, middle class money just floated off across the sea, never to return.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Been in a department store lately? Try to find something that's NOT made in China. Go ahead, try. The same goes for hardware stores. Even supermarkets are now on board. Much of the food on their shelves is coming from China.

And every time you buy something from China, a chunk of your money goes off to China. You kiss it goodbye. Their standard of living goes up, while yours goes down.

It's what usually happens when economies meet. Hardly never does either survive unscathed. Usually, they both re-adjust. The higher level one will go down somewhat, while the lower level one will rise somewhat. The two will meet somewhere in between the two original starting levels.

Bad news... This just in... Your standard of living here in the U.S. is now on the way down... Eventually, it will meet with China and India (and others!), who are now all on the way up... At your expense!

Don't blame me... That's just the way the world is...

How do you fix this problem?

Here's the Governments solution. Assume that the middle class will be back to normal in ten years or so, and will once again have extra money at their disposal. That will thus get the economy back running properly again. In the meantime, borrow from those future tax payers, and give it to the rich people in the present, and those big wall street firms that are too big to fail. Give the money from future tax payers to the wall street executives, as bonuses (for work well done?).

Bail out General Motors and Chrysler. In fact, don't stop there. Offer cash for clunkers. Use future taxpayers money to help sell cars from the auto companies.

In about ten years, you'll be paying in part, in taxes, for that brand new car that your neighbor bought today! You're now doing your neighbor a good deed! Whether you want to or not! In ten years or so, you're going to start paying for the car he bought today.

Well... Maybe not...

For you see... The problem... the REAL problem... is still not being addressed. The middle class is still out of money. It's all gone to China, and into the middle east oil bank vaults, and to the rich people, here and abroad. The middle class is still out of money, their income is falling, they're out of work and losing their homes, and about all they can afford is food, and gas for the car, and oil for heat.

And money for medical bills and health insurance... Hey... Don't even get me started on THAT.

(For that, wait until Chapter-2... THEN you can get me started on THAT!...).

Many towns, cities, and states are now facing budget problems. Many are now borrowing their way along. That assumes once again that tax dollars will become available sometime in the future.

What if they're not? Tax dollars come from the middle class. At the rate things are still going, the middle class isn't going to have tax dollars to give any time soon. You can't get blood out of a rock.

Again I ask... How do you fix this problem?

I'll give you the answer... Though you're not gonna like it...

Re-distribute the wealth.

Now, some dimwits are going to jump up and shout Communism and Socialism! And Government Regulation! And all that stuff.

And to them I say... What do you dimwits plan on doing after America is gone?

Because that's what will happen, without a healthy middle class. And don't bother saying that can't happen here.

Go tell it to the Roman Empire. The Egyptian Empire. The British Empire. The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Point is, and history validates, countries come and go. They're like living things. They have life cycles. They come into existence, they run their course, and eventually they die out, or change into something else.

Like, for instance... Washidagon. And Texahoma. And Indillihio. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont will become the country of Northern New England. Mass., R.I., and Conn. will become the country of Southern New England.

And so on. You get